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Originally Posted by wolf
Thank you Els, for the lyrics (The song was the first thing I thought of on seeing the picture).
I had the good fortune of seeing Harry do that live, a year or so before his death.
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I was fortunate enough to see Harry thrice over the years. The biggest single screw up of my entire youthful life was related to Harry, in fact.
It seems he came to KC's Midland Theater, a classic, 1920's movie palace deluxe (since completely and beautifully restored) back in 1974. In those days, concerts weren't quite so militant about enforcing you being in a seat, or coming up to the stage. With Harry's mellow demographic, it was totally cool, as was having a camera. I spent the whole show right on the edge of the stage, knealt down out of deference to the audience, shooting closeup pics of an accomodating Mr. Chapin, who would turn and smile or shoot a thumbs up into the lens for me. It was *awesome* for me, as I did and still do idolize the man.
Fast forward a couple of weeks when I left for California on a post-HS graduation visit to see my estranged father. When we arrived at Lake Tahoe, I opened my camera to load it, noticed there was a roll of film in it already, and had no idea what it could be. My first thought was that it was something left over from my job as a HS photographer, and reasoning that since I was out of school, I just yanked the roll out.
A few weeks later, I remembered that it was the lovingly shot roll of Harry Chapin pics. I was thunderstruck. Stay off the dope, kids.
I actually cried the night I heard Harry had died. He was perhaps the most influential songwriter/musician for me during my late teens. Harry was a wonderful artist and a great humanitarian.